Allan Clayton

Tenor

Allan Clayton is one of the most exciting and sought-after singers of his generation. He studied at St John’s College, Cambridge and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. An Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and former BBC New Generation Artist from 2007–2009, Clayton has been awarded The Queen’s Commendation for Excellence, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, the 2018 WhatsOnStage Award for Excellence in Opera, and the 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award.

Allan Clayton garnered huge praise as the lead role in Brett Dean’s Hamlet, which had its world premiere at Glyndebourne in June 2017. He reprised the role in March 2018 at the Adelaide Festival. During 2017, Clayton also sang the role of David in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. At the beginning of the 17/18 season, Clayton sang the role of Ferdinand in Miranda for Opera Comique. He returned to the Komische Opera Berlin in 2018 for Handel’s Semele, and also to Glyndebourne for Handel’s Saul. In 2019 he makes his role debut as Faust in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust at Glyndebourne.

Clayton’s concert appearances include The Dream of Gerontius at the Barbican Centre in London with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder, Britten’s War Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov, and Handel’s Messiah for the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston. Clayton appears regularly at the BBC Proms, where he has sung the title role in Oedpius Rex with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo and also performed in Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He performed the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s new work, Canada, at the 2017 BBC Proms, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. In 2018, Clayton sang in a concert performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, and Britten’s War Requiem at the Nationaltheater Mannheim.